Assegai

‘We will be camping here for a while,’ Leon told him, ‘so we can make ourselves comfortable before the morani arrive.’ All the equipment for a fly camp was packed into the cargo hold of the Butterfly. It did not take Leon long to set it up. He sited the tents in the shade beneath the aircraft’s wings. Ishmael built his kitchen and cooking fire at a safe distance from the aircraft and was soon serving coffee and ginger snaps.

Leon drained his mug, then looked up at the sky to judge the time. ‘Loikot will be here any minute now,’ he told Graf Otto, and had barely finished the sentence when Loikot trotted out from among the trees.

Leon left the shade and walked into the sunlight to greet him. He was desperately eager to hear Loikot’s report, but he knew Loikot could not be hurried. The more portentous his tidings, the longer Loikot took to divulge them. First he took a little snuff, standing on one leg and leaning on his spear. Then they agreed that it had been three days since they had last seen each other, a long time, that the weather was hot for this season of the year, and that it would probably rain before sunset, which would be good for the grazing.

‘So, Loikot, mighty hunter and intrepid tracker, what of your lions? Do you still have them in your eye?’

Loikot shook his head lugubriously.

‘You have lost them?’ Leon asked angrily. ‘You have let them escape?’

‘No! It is true that the smallest lion has disappeared but I still have the largest one in my eye. I saw him no more than two hours ago. He is alone, still lying up from the heat on top of the hillock I pointed out to you earlier.’

‘We should not bewail the disappearance of the other,’ Leon consoled him. ‘One lion on his own will be easier to work with. Two together might be one too many.’

‘Where is Manyoro?’ Loikot asked.

‘After we left you we flew over the manyatta of Massana. The morani hunters were gathered there, but they must already be on their way to join us. The manyatta is not far off. They will be here soon.’

‘I will go back to keep watch on my lion,’ Loikot volunteered. ‘When it is dark, he might move a great distance. I will return early tomorrow morning.’

It was still two hours from sunset when they heard singing and saw the people coming through the open forest towards where they were camped on the edge of the pan. Manyoro was leading them, and he was followed by the long file of armed morani decked out in full hunting regalia, carrying shields and assegais.

Behind them came hundreds of men, women and children. They had gathered from every manyatta for fifty miles around. Like a flock of gorgeous sunbirds, the unmarried girls fluttered behind the regiment of eligible morani. By the time the sun had set, this agglomeration of humanity was encamped around the Butterfly, and the night air was redolent with the aromas from the cooking fires. Excitement was ru

The next morning, before it was light, Loikot returned from his scouting expedition. He reported that, by the light of the moon, the lion had taken a young kudu cow and was still feeding on the carcass. ‘He will not leave his kill,’ Loikot said with conviction.

The hunters waited for the sun with mounting anticipation. They sat around the fires preening and dressing their hair, sharpening their assegais and tightening the sinews of their shields. When the first rays of the sun struck the cliffs of the escarpment, the master of the hunt blew a blast on his whistle to signal the start. They sprang up from their sleeping mats and formed up on the white salt plain in their ranks. They began to dance and sing, softly at first but with increasing abandon as the excitement built up.

The young girls formed a ring around them. They started to ululate, to stamp their feet and jerk their hips, to clap their hands and bob their heads. They joggled their breasts and oscillated their plump round buttocks for the men, egging them on. The morani began to sweat as they danced. Their eyes glazed over with a ferment of blood-lust and arousal.

Suddenly Graf Otto appeared from the tent that had been erected in the shadow of the Butterfly’s wide wings and marched on to the white pan. A roar went up from the morani ranks when they saw him. He was dressed in a red tribal shuka. The skirt was belted around his waist and the tail was thrown back over one shoulder. The skin of his upper torso and limbs was exposed, white as an egret’s wing. The hair on his chest and forearms was as bright as copper wire. His shoulders were wide, his chest was broad and his limbs were hard and muscled, but his belly was full, begi

The young girls shrieked with laughter, and clung to each other in raptures of mirth. They had never imagined a mzungu to dress in tribal costume. They flocked to him and gathered around him, still giggling. They touched his milky skin, and stroked his red-gold body hair in wonder. Then Graf Otto began to dance. The girls backed away, and soon they were no longer giggling. They clapped the rhythm for him and urged him on with shrill, excited cries.

Graf Otto danced with extraordinary grace for such a big man. He leaped high, spun, stamped and stabbed at the air with the assegai in his right hand. He flourished the rawhide shield that he carried on his left shoulder. The prettiest and more daring of the girls took it in turns to come forward and dance face to face with him. They shot out their long, crane-like necks and rattled the collars of beadwork that festooned them. Their breasts were polished with fat and red ochre, and with each stiff-legged jump they bounced tantalizingly. The air was thick with the dust raised by their flying bare feet, musky with the smell of their sweat, and charged with the prospect of blood, death and carnality.

Leon leaned against the fuselage of the Butterfly and seemed to give his full attention to this display of primeval abandon. However, almost within arm’s length of where he stood Eva was perched on the leading edge of the Butterfly’s wing, legs dangling. From this angle he was able to study her face without seeming to do so. Eva showed no emotion at the display other than mild amusement. Once again, Leon wondered at her ability to hide her true feelings so completely.

Graf Otto was her man, and ostensibly she was his woman, yet he was participating in a blatantly sexual ritual with dozens of nubile, half-naked and frenzied young females. If she felt demeaned and insulted by his boorish behaviour, she did not show it, but Leon seethed on her behalf.

Almost as though she could feel his eyes on her, she looked down at him from her perch on the wing. Her expression was calm and her eyes were secretive, betraying nothing. Then, as their gazes locked, she allowed him to see into the secret, well-guarded places of her soul. Such manifest love for him shone forth from her violet eyes that he caught his breath. All at once he was aware of the depth of the change that had overtaken them. No matter what had gone before, they were now committed to each other. Nothing and nobody else counted. Looking into each other’s eyes they exchanged vows that were silent but irrevocable.

The moment was shattered by the blast of a whistle and a great shout from the morani. The hunters formed up in column. Loikot took his place in the front rank to guide them to where the quarry was lying up. Still singing the Lion Song, the morani followed him, winding through the trees, with the gleaming white body of Graf Otto in their midst. The spectators trooped after them. Gustav and He